On its face, the city of Detroit looks like it's on its ass: Crime, a municipal crisis and urban architectural marvels gone fallow. And yet, beneath it all, the city's harboring a creative energy that — like Berlin — could be the engine of its renaissance.

Or so says Alex Roy, on his Drive-produced road-trip show, Live and Let Drive. In the first segment of his recent Detroit spelunking trip, Alex happens on a noted Detroit car photographer on a photo shoot for a $1.7-million supercar, finds a grassroots market in an abandoned warehouse, cowers at the sound of an air-raid siren, samples the wares of a local haberdasher and uncovers bits of Detroitalia non-locals never get to see.